by Kris Elaine
One morning, when he did not come down for breakfast, she grew worried. She took the stairs to his tower two at a time and hurriedly knocked at his door. “Your Grace, are you well?” she anxiously called.
“Of course I’m well. Why would you think otherwise?” he answered as he opened the door.
Suddenly, Cedra felt foolish. Why would she think otherwise? He had only ever been the image of health, even as she tended to his leg. “You didn’t come down for breakfast. I thought-” What? What sign had he given that she should worry?
“Buggering hell,” he cursed and looked away. “I apologize. I was distracted.” He glanced behind himself, and then opened the door wider. “Come in. I want to show you something.”
Cedra was cautious, but entered to room anyways. Much of the mess and broken furniture had been cleared away. The remaining furniture in the sitting area was sparse, but suited him. Only a couch sat by the brazier, with a table and a single chair by a window facing the courtyard. The wooden partition still hid his bed, but it was now covered in an intricate tapestry of a blond haired woman sitting between a lion and a unicorn.
“Here,” he said low, placing his hand at the small of her back to guide her.
She felt her face warm at his touch, but followed him to the table by the window. Laid out was the torn family portrait she had seen before. The broken wood frame was gone and the canvas laid flat across the table. The rips and cuts had been meticulously lined up.
“This is my mother.” He pointed to the woman, his other arm still wrapped around Cedra’s waist. “That’s my sister she’s holding. And that’s my father. And this boy is me.” His finger ghosted above the canvas, pausing at each face before finishing on a boy not much older than Chip. She noticed he did not point out the older boy, larger than even the father in this portrait.
Cedra studied the little boy, looking for a resemblance to the man who stood beside her, who held her. The eyes were the same color, but showed more fear than anger. His hair was shorter, shaggier, some falling on his face. This was before he started tying his hair back. The nose was unbroken, fewer scars crossed his face, though the longest and worst was already there, cast in shadow, and there was a small birthmark on his neck where she had noticed one the night they danced.
Now he stood beside her, waiting for her to say something, though she didn’t know what.
“Your mother was beautiful,” she tried. She felt Tuarl move closer to her, felt his arm tighten slightly.
“She was. My whole life I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And she loved to sing. I never heard singing as beautiful as hers until…” He paused and pulled away from her, removing his arm. “I don’t know when, but Kenum destroyed the canvas. I know you have some skill with a needle. Can you fix this?”
Cedra studied the painting carefully, pulling back a corner to peek at the material. The rips were not clean and she had no thread that matched the paint. “I can close the tears. It won’t be perfect but it will be intact.”
Tuarl delicately rolled up the painting. “Please,” he whispered as he held it out to her. “If you don’t mind. I will be in your debt.”
“Of course,” Cedra nodded, voice equally soft. “It would be my pleasure.” She held it gingerly and tried to find a reason to remain speaking with him. “You put me in her old room, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She noticed he stepped close to her again, but was unable to look her in the eye. “My parents had an arranged marriage and my father gave her that room so she had a place of her own. A place to be happy.” His hand came up and rested at Cedra’s cheek, finally looking at her. She leaned into his gentle palm. “I want you to be happy, Cedra. Here. With me.”
“I am,” she smiled, and then her face fell as her attention returned to the painting in her hands.
“What is it?”
“I miss my family. If I could see them, let them know I’m well…” Her voice trailed off.
Tuarl’s heart dropped. It was cruel of him to take her away. He knew it at the time and knew it more so now. Of course she would want to leave him for her family. He dropped his hand and stepped away from her, hating the distance between them. He couldn’t look in her eyes any longer and turned towards the window.
“Go home,” he said simply.
“What?” she whispered, clearly surprised.
“Go home. See your family.”
“For how long?”
“Forever. But I release you.”
“But I mean to come back.”
“No, I expect I’ll never see you again.”
The fleeting touch of her hand against his spine still burned when the door clicked shut behind her. He watched the courtyard all day. Just before midday, he watched Clarence bring a horse from the stables and help Cedra climb into the saddle, a bag slung over her shoulders. As she disappeared out the gates, he didn’t bother to stop the tears.
Cedra rode hard, wanting to see her family as soon as she could. She had so much to tell them: how what they knew about Tuarl was wrong, how he was kind and generous, how she had grown to care for him. She often checked the straps of her bag, not wanting to lose her precious cargo. No matter what he had said about releasing her, she still meant to return. As the castle grew smaller and disappeared in the distance, though, she slowed the horse. Her heart grew heavier with every mile she crossed. Was it a mistake to ask to see her family? What if he turned her away at her return? She checked her bag again. He had to let her return if only for what she carried.
The sun had long set by the time she rode up to the door of her family home. Excitedly, she dismounted and knocked on the door, anxious to see everyone again. After a pause, her mother opened the door and froze, staring in surprise.
“Hello, Mama,” Cedra smiled, breathless with excitement. “I’m home.”
Catelyn White said nothing but pulled her daughter into a tight hug. Cedra returned it, missing the feel of her mother’s arms wrapped around her. A voice called from within and she was released just long enough to find the rest of her family coming around the door to see who the visitor was. She soon found herself buried in a sea of arms all trying to hug her at once. Cedra giggled and laughed as she held each member of her family tightly. And then she came to her father.
“Papa,” she cried happily, then stopped as he only stared coldly at her. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed everyone.”
“Why are you here, Cedra?” The familiar sound of fear laced his tone.
“Tuarl let me go, Papa.”
“That beast let you go?” Bruden asked with incredulity.
“But he’s not a beast,” argued Cedra. “He’s gentle.” She grasped her mother’s hand. “Oh, he’s so kind. I have so much to tell you all!”
“And you can,” Catelyn said as she took the bag from Cedra. “Just not tonight. It’s late.”
Still worn from her ride, she easily fell asleep in her old bed. The following morning, the soft sound of voices woke Cedra and she quietly made her way downstairs. Her whole life, she had thought this house was the largest in the world, holding two bedrooms above her parents’ room and a sitting room with a table and cooking hearth. Now, it seemed like a tiny cottage, every room cramped. As glad as she was to see her family, she missed the peace and solitude she could find at the castle. In the noise of her family moving about the house, she missed Tuarl’s quiet presence.
“Cedra, come here,” her father called quietly when she reached the foot of the steps. Cedra was tentative as she sat beside him at the table, uncertain of what he meant to discuss. Her mother worked on breakfast at the opposite end of the table, frowning but quiet. “Why did the Beast let you go, dear one?”
“I told him I missed you and he told me to come home. Oh, Papa, Tuarl isn’t the monster everyone makes him out to be. It was all the Giant. Duke Kenum is the one who killed the royal family and attacked all the villages. Tuarl didn’t do any of it!”
“But he didn’t stop it,” Granen i
nterrupted. “He was sworn to the King but you say his brother killed them. Did he try to save them? If he is a good man, where has he been these past ten years?”
Cedra tried to remember but Tuarl had not told her. “I don’t know. But he wasn’t there, he was away on the king’s business.”
“Be that as it may, his inaction while the kingdom suffered was just as dishonorable as being the one to wield the blade.” He studied his daughter quietly. “Was the Beast ever dishonorable to you?”
“Never!” Cedra flushed, knowing what her father meant, but some part of her wished Tuarl had. The out of place thought made her face burn hotter. “Tuarl would never hurt me.”
“Did he really release you from your promise? He said it was forever.”
“He did, Papa, but I still intend to keep my promise. I am happy with him.”
Mayor White sadly nodded his head and said nothing further.
Over the days, Cedra mended the torn canvas as she told stories about her stay with Duke Tuarl Beytill. She talked about Chip and his mischievous pranks. She talked about Jane’s sweet smiles, Arianne’s eagerness to learn to cook, Rose’s easy laughter. She mentioned Adira grandmothering everyone, Clarence stealing whatever sweets or berries Adira was cooking with before kissing his wife. And she talked about Tuarl: she talked about the night they danced, about how he helped her in the glass garden and gave her a library and listened to her read. And as she told all these stories, she carefully mended a torn canvas with her tiniest, most delicate stitches.
Her family sat around her at the table, in the sitting room, in the garden as she told her stories. They asked few questions, and her mother laughed at the antics. Her brother and her father who looked thunderous at her stories, though.
At the end of a fortnight, the portrait was mended and Cedra surprised herself when she wished for home and realized this cottage with her family wasn’t it.
“I must go back to him, Mama,” she explained. “I promised I would stay with Tuarl. And I miss him.”
“I know, dear one,” her mother soothed. “But what does he intend for you? You say you have not been dishonored yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“No, Mama! He would never do that! I think he was lonely.” She traced the image of the baby girl on the canvas. “He wasn’t as fortunate in his childhood that I was. I was so lucky to have you, Papa, and Bruden. Tuarl didn’t really have a family who cared about him. At least not for very long.”
“But can a man who’s never had love know how to give it?”
“I think he can learn.”
Catelyn hugged her elder daughter. “I’ll miss you, dear one, more than anything. But I’ve heard you talking about him.” She cupped her daughter’s cheek. “If you feel you must be with him, you have my blessing.”
“But Papa-”
“Never mind your father. His job as your father is to worry about you.” She kissed her daughter on the forehead. “In the morning, go to him.”
The following morning, Cedra bid her family goodbye. The hugs from her was strained. Bruden snuck her a knife with the instruction to “use it if the Beast tries to hurt you.” Her mother gave her one last hug and kiss before Cedra was mounted and riding towards the castle and Tuarl and home.
Tuarl saw no reason to leave his room at the top of the west tower. Cedra was not waiting for him downstairs so there was no point to leaving. After the first couple days, Adira had tried to talk to him but he locked the door on her instead. Rose or Clarence began to bring his meals to him in silence. At the end of the first sennight after Cedra left, he heard a woman’s screams through the castle and his supper was late. Jane had given birth, Clarence said when he finally brought the tray up, and it was a boy. Tuarl didn’t respond, picturing a boy with black hair and grey eyes slicing a small child’s head and face. Before the end of a fortnight after Cedra left, Master Owen came to him.
“You are unwell, Your Grace,” the man said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tuarl grumbled, still staring out the window to the courtyard, still watching the gate she had ridden through.
“It does matter, Your Grace. The kingdom is truly at peace for the first time in decades; your monstrous brother is gone. His men are scattered or dead. This is all thanks to you, Your Grace.” Tuarl did not answer. “She will come back.” They both knew who the healer meant. “I saw the way she looked at you, heard the way she talked about you. She will return.”
Tuarl was too weary to try to believe. “She has no reason to. She wanted her family and now she has it.”
“Then why did you let her leave, if you believed she would not return?”
“Because I love her.” The words slipped more easily from his lips than anything before.
“Does she know, Your Grace? Did you tell her?”
Tuarl hated that his growl came out more like a whimper. “Get out. Leave me.”
Fifteen days after Cedra left, just before sundown, he spied a flash of auburn hair in the courtyard. His feet carried him down the winding steps of his tower and he cursed his leg at every step. Through the lord’s door into the Great Hall he froze. Across the hall, framed by the open doors, stood the vision of an angel. He tried to tell himself she wasn’t there, that she hadn’t come home, she wasn’t smiling at him.
“You’re back,” was the only thing he could say.
She nodded, grinning. “I came home,” she answered.
Cedra wanted nothing more than to feel his arms around her again and she ran up the hall, around the high table, and flew into Tuarl’s arms. She buried her face in his neck, breathing in that scent of him that she had first caught all those ages ago when they danced. Her face hurt from her grin as his arms circled her and pulled her flush to his chest.
“I missed you,” she whispered over and over. “I missed you so much. I missed you.”
Tuarl didn’t answer her, beyond tightening his hold, and Cedra knew he felt the same. Cautiously, not wanting to startle him, she pulled back and placed a hand on either side of his face. Watching him, waiting for any sign he wished her to stop, she stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his. She relaxed into him as he returned the kiss.
He could not believe she was in his arms, kissing his snarling mouth as though he was all she desired. He also could not bear the thought of the only other option: that she wasn’t there, that he had gone mad and imagined her feel and smell and taste. So he pulled her tighter to him, kissed her deeply, ran his hands down the swell of her hips and up into the silk of her hair.
When they at last broke apart for air, Cedra released a breathy laugh. Tuarl kissed across her jaw, down her throat, to the tip of her shoulders, delighting as she pressed into him. His skin burned with a divine fire where she draped an arm across his shoulders, where her fingers grazed his scalp. He brushed against her skin, followed the shell of her ear with his nose. And he would not release her, not for anything.
“I brought you something,” she whispered, still pressed tightly to him.
“Mmm.”
“It’s in my bag.”
Reluctantly, Tuarl let her pull away, but stayed close as she opened her bag at the table and rummaged through it. How, in only fifteen days, had he forgotten the sight of the golden strands hidden amongst the red? How did he not remember the tiny constellation of freckles across her nose, or the shade of pink her face changed to when she was happy? He kept his arm wrapped around her waist and nuzzled her hair, committing her smell to memory.
“I did the best I could,” she was saying and Tuarl looked to what she meant to show him.
Spread on the table was the portrait. As she said, it wasn’t perfect. A seam ran down the middle of Kenum’s face and the boy Tuarl once was looked as though he had lost his head then had it reattached. But his parents were reunited on the canvas, brought closer by Cedra’s stitching. The stitches themselves were tiny, nearly invisible, but still present. He gently ran his finger down the longest seam, the one that had split his parents
and felt his lips turn up. His words came back to him.
“I am in your debt.”
Cedra leaned closer to Tuarl, loving his warmth enveloping her. For now, this was enough.
“What will you do with it?” she asked curiously.
In response Tuarl rolled up the painting and took her by the hand before leading her up the steps to the west tower. Once inside, he dropped her hand and reached behind the couch before the brazier. He felt Cedra watch him as he pulled out an old frame and carefully stretched and pinned the canvas to the back. When he flipped it over, he showed her the final product before hanging it on the wall. Finished, Tuarl returned to her side and kissed her again, missing her lips after only a matter of minutes.
“Do you wish to stay?” he asked as he cupped her cheeks in his hands. Her skin was soft and warm under his palms and he could no longer try to convince himself that she was an illusion.
“I do.” She clasped his hands and tilted her face up for another kiss.
Tuarl dodged, not wanting to be distracted, and rested his forehead to hers instead. “Would you wish to stay as my wife?”
“I do.” Her voice was no more than a whisper, a breath of air between them.
“Say it again,” he begged.
“I will marry you. I want to marry you. Yes, Tuarl, yes.”
He kissed her deeply then. One hand slipped into her hair and the other slid down her back and pulled her flush to him again. The feel of her against him, willingly pressing herself to him, sighing into his mouth, had his blood boiling. He needed her now, needed to know she was his and he was hers.
“I have a chapel but no priest,” he groaned into her ear.
She held him closely. “We have witnesses. That is all we need. When a wandering septon comes this way, we can invite my family for the blessing.”